NINTEEN HOURS WITH THE DEAD

Grey River Argus, 13 February 1915, Page 2

NINTEEN HOURS WITH THE DEAD

ADVENTURES OP A BRITISH SCOUT. i A HOUSE OF MYSTERY. , NORTHERN FRANCE. Once he was one of Baden-Powell's Scouts ia South Africa. To-day he is :» private in a regiment— but still n scout. While others have lain waiting for I death in the trenches, he lias gone out courting death, night after night; creeping inch by inch' right up to the German | trenches; lying like one dead for hour . after hour, almost within arm's length of the enemy, listening with all his ears • for a few words that night give some I clue to the plans for the morrow. He is a man with a charmed life; and even when he was struck down at last the dum-dum bullet that should have killed him merely ploughed a groove round his neck and shoulder instead of smashing the base of his skull. So it was when i found him here: a lean figure with eyes like two holes burned into a face fashioned of parch ment, much bandaged and stiff-necked, • but speaking with easy confidence of ex • periences that would have shattered the nerves of weaker men. Among the Killed. I He told me almost incredible things s — save that this war Jias shown that ' nothing is incredible. He recalled, as ' you or I might recall a summer's walk, the night when, almost taken by surl prise, he dropped in the nick of time, t among the bodies of half a dozendead i. Germans. ! He lay there like one dead fpr nine--1 teen hours, hardly daring to breathe not able to move a finger-tip racked with . cramp and nearly frozen. Then, at last • the enemy went away — and the scout ' crawled back to his regiment, which' — not for the first time — haclgiven him up for dead. "It was quite worth it, though," he said said reflectively. "You see I can i understand enough German to pick up - what they are saying; and what I " heard that night was quite useful, even though I was rather late getting back." He admitted that to lie among GerI man corpses was unpleasant, but he pointed out that to find cover Avas the first element of his craft, and any sort ; of cover was better than none. That was why he was glad one night to cuddle up against the body of a dead , cow — and it had been dead a long time — not twenty yards from the German trenches. He and the cow were as one black smudge in the moonlight for many hours, and then at last a cloud over the • monn for a few moments gave him a ' chance to make a dash for his own 1 lines; if, indeed, you can call a dash a ■ progression that was made mainly by wriggling like a lizard along the ground. i In the Lighted Boom There was one night Avhen the scout and a companion ran against a mystery I — a mystery which they were never able to explain. It Avas somewhere near Ypres. The two, Avorking together, had gone some distance from their lines when they saAV a house with lighted windows in a clump of trees. They crept up to the. house. There was nosound from within, and one of them, greatly daring peeped in at a AvindoAV — and then dropped as if shot. There were four German officers sitting asleep in the room. There Avas food on the table, and the Germans had eaten, apparently, and then fallen asleep where they sat. Presently the scout took another peep — and then a longer look. The Germans did not move. The scout and his companion, suddenly bold, searched for a door, found it on the latch, and entered. They went into the room they had seen like a lighted j stage from the darkness outside. The four Germans did not move or wake. They were all dead. Among the wine stains on the table, there Avere stains of a deeper colour, and on the floor, by the side of one of those still figures, there was something that looked like a black' pool in the lamplight. The intruders crept out as quietly as they had come, not seeking to solve the mystery of the four still men at the table in. the lighted room. There was another grim picture which the scout showed me in a few Avords. It was that of a dead tree standing up soli ' tary, in a plain at dawn. Sitting proppedup against the trunk, back to back, were tAvo Germans — dead. Together they must have dragged themselves so far, and then sat down to. look at their unstanched wounds, and Avait for death. As the scout looked back a bird settled on the head of one of the dead men and began to sing. The Hen House. To set against the memory of those hours of horror the scout had the memory of another night, when he and one of the enemy's scouts found the same hen house almost at the same moment. Each had thought of chicken for supper and both agreed that a well stocked hen house Avas no place to settle international quarrels. The hen house was declared neutral ground; and it remained neutral ground for many nights until the last I,avo chickens had been silently strangled and as silently carried to opposite trenches. Then .the armistice ended; but neither scout went near the hen house again. "He might have been waiting for me," said the scout and added reflectively, "I had some thought of Avaiting for him." It is the irony of fate that" such a man as the scout should escape a thousand deaths only to be brought down by a sniper just as he had regained the comparative safety of his trench. He is - going back when his wound is healed — if only to have his revenge, in his own way and by his own risky methods. One scout such as he is worth a regiment of German snipers.